Malawi News Online (28) - 04/23/97

MALAWI NEWS ONLINE/MALAWI NEWS ONLINE/MALAWI NEWS ONLINE

A fortnightly update of news from Malawi
Edition # 28 23 April 1997

MALAWI NEWS ONLINE is written by Malawian journalists
in Malawi and brings you the news from their point
of view. It is assembled and edited in Denmark by South
Africa Contact, the former anti-apartheid movement,
publishers of i'Afrika, a quarterly magazine on Southern
Africa.

The fortnightly news updates from Malawi are provided
by our established network of journalists in Southern
Africa. ZAMBIA NEWS ONLINE and TANZANIA NEWS ONLINE
are our latest newsletters and they will be followed,
in the not too distant future, by individual news updates
covering other Southern African countries,.

MALAWI NEWS ONLINE is brought to you by a co-operation
between South Africa Contact and Inform, the leading
alternative information network in Denmark.

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Feature:
ILLITERACY BACK-PEDALS THE DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN

The high rate of illiteracy in Malawi has played a substantial
role in women's inability to advance, some experts
say. Only 29% of women, who make up 52% of the country's
population, know how to read and write. "This
poses a big problem in terms of advancement,"
says Maureen Kachingwe, a Blantyre-based lawyer and
gender activist. "The less educated you are,
the less exposure you have." she says. ìMost
illiterate women are dependent on men. If women have
to be dependent on men, even their participation in
society is dependent on others.î

Apart from education, other solutions to the plight
of women are civic education to expose women and enlighten
them as to what their capabilities could be. Among
other things, she said, civic education should be aimed
at changing the attitude of those who interact with
women to be able to give them a chance. She also suggests
that there should be positive discrimination, whereby
the constitution would allow government to be able
to institute programmes biased towards women. She said
that although this is on the statute books, there has
not been any deliberate action to speed up the process.

Dr Naomi Ngwira of Vision 2020 says there has been a
move from women in development to a gender and development
approach. In the women in development approach, there
was a tendency to look at women as a problem category,
with women having to be targeted and helped. She said
the gender approach does not just look at women in
a problematic way but at both men and women together.
She said the feminist approach has sometimes gone against
what women want to achieve. "We have to be sober
as women and examine our options clearly."

Ngwira said when you involve women in the development
process, you promote economic growth, adding that if
you put more resources in women you reduce poverty
in society. Women, she says, face many constraints
to their effective participation in society. One of
the constraints is labeling and stigmatisation. "If
a woman comes to a position of power, she is a prostitute
or trivialised," she says. She said if women are
in positions of power, it is assumed they reached
this through selling their bodies.

This results in very capable women shying away from
such positions because they want to protect their honour
and prevent being labeled as prostitutes. Dr Ngwira
said there is need for leadership nurseries for women.
There is need to "nurse" girls and encourage
those with disabilities to become leaders.

"We should encourage women to lead male/female
groups in their societies and schools," she said.
She pushed for leadership seminars at district and
local levels where such issues could be discussed.
"We must equip women through education,"
she said.

1. CABINET RESHUFFLE IMMINENT

President Bakili is expected to announce a cabinet reshuffle
to trim his bloated cabinet from 36 to 19. The reshuffle
follows recommendations from three firms engaged by
government to conduct a survey on the possibility of
combining some ministries in a move aimed at trimming
down the number and avoiding duplication of services.

The consultants are said to have recommended a number
of ministries for the chopping board along with their
incumbent ministers. It appears, however, that no one
in the know so far feels comfortable enough to admit
that cabinet portfolios are about to be trimmed and
some ministers sent packing.

Among those whose responsibilities are seen to duplicate
those of others are Youth, Sports and Culture, Irrigation
and Water Development and Physical Planning and Surveys.

Deputy Secretary to the President and Cabinet Kamphambe
Nkhoma said the essence of the British-funded exercise
was in line with the on-going civil service reform
programme.

2. STRIKING CIVIL SERVANTS PELT UDF SECRETARY GENERAL

Civil servants. who have been striking since April 7
demanding higher salaries as recommended by the Chatsika
Report, on April 8 pelted UDF Secretary General Sam
Mpasu with stones in the old capital, Zomba. They also
smashed a cabinet minister's vehicle. Mpasu was hit
on his jaw while driving his own car to the Parliament
Building. The strikers also smashed the rear window
of a vehicle belonging to Education Minister, Donton
Mkandawire. He escaped unhurt.

On the second day of the strike, on April 8, police
charged the chairman of the Zomba district civil servants
Committee, Anicent Mtonga with malicious damage. In
Blantyre, on the same day, police fired tear gas in
the air to disperse civil servants who were allegedly
blocking traffic in the city. There were no injuries.

Civil servants want the government to increase their
pay by 100%, backdated from January this year. However,
government says it can only give an average pay rise
of between 10% for the highest paid to 47% for the
lowest paid civil servants.

3. MP WITHDRAWS MOTION AGAINST HEALTH MINISTER

Member of parliament for Rumphi Central, Mayinga Mkandawire,
who had moved a motion calling for the resignation
of former Health Minister, Sam Mpasu for his involvement
in the Fieldyork exercise book scandal, has withdrawn
the motion.

Mkandawire, who had called on parliament to "take
appropriate action" against Mpasu, is one of the
six cabinet ministers appointed from the opposition
Alliance for Democracy into the UDF government. His
withdrawal of the motion is apparently as a result
of his appointment to the cabinet.

Mpasu concluded an international contract to procure
exercise books for use in free primary education with
high contract prices, no contract documents signed,
no terms of contract and with no government network
or other official involved, including the Central Tender
Board. When the scam was uncovered, President Bakili
Muluzi dismissed Mpasu from the cabinet.

4. CUSTOMS UNION THREATENS TO JOIN STRIKE The Customs
Workers Union has given government a 14-day ultimatum
to implement the Chatsika Report, with its recommendations
on salaries for civil servants. If not implemented,
they say, its members will join the on-going strike.

Civil servants went on strike on April 7 after government
rescinded its decision to implement the Chatsika Report
that recommends a 300% salary rise and an improvement
in working conditions. The strike has paralysed government
operations, including the health sector, where only
a skeleton staff is dealing with emergency cases.

The Customs Department is the government's biggest revenue
collector contributing more than 50% of the government's
budget.

5. HOSPITALS STICK TO STRIKE THREAT

Government hospitals have almost closed down as part
of the measures of striking civil servants to force
the authorities to see things their way. The threat
had been issued by the Civil Servants Trade Union CSTU
president in the southern region, Thomas Mwafongo,
when he addressed hospital personnel in Blantyre on
April 15. Mwafongo lashed out at government for continuing
to accept people into the civil service, a move that
he said was swelling the government's wage bill.

Since the strike started two weeks ago, hospitals have
maintained skeleton staff to deal with emergencies.
The Union ordered all personnel in hospitals in Malawi
to stop working from April 19. Queen Elizabeth Hospital,
the countryís largest, reports that it has
almost come to a complete standstill.

6. AIRLINE PASSENGERS STRANDED BY STRIKE

The country's two international airports of Chileka
and Lilongwe closed on April 14 as civil aviation
staff joined their striking colleagues forcing international
aircraft to land without ground assistance.

International flights had to be diverted as firefighters
and air traffic controllers joined their civil service
colleagues on strike.

Malawiís national airline has said that it will
ask the airforce for assistance in manning the airports.

7. STRIKE MAY FORCE GOVERNMENT MASS RETRENCHMENT

The government has warned that it may have to reduce
its staff of almost 120, 000 by 50% to raise funds
to pay increased salaries for civil servants.

Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on the Economy, Cassim
Chilumpha, said the government will have to raise K1
billion (US$ 660 million) to fully implement the recommendation
of the Chatsika Report for full new salaries. He said,
however, that pumping this money into the economy will
trigger high inflation, rendering useless the whole
Chatsika salaries decision as most goods will then
be too expensive.

Chilumpha, who is also Minister of Justice and Attorney
General, warned that the already overburdened taxpayer
and industry will have to shoulder the burden of paying
for the borrowed money and the accrued interest. He
added that this would also be bound to discourage investments
and savings.

He said another alternative could be "mass retrenchment"
of the 120,000 civil servants. He noted that the Chatsika
Report suggests that the civil service be ìtrimmed
to the right sizeî. He said, however, that government's
position is that it is better to share the little there
is and retain most of its work force.

8. COMESA SECRETARY GENERAL DISMISSED

Comesa Secretary, General Bingu Wa Mutharika, has finally
been dismissed for what Commerce and Industry Minister
Chakakala Chaziya on April 15 described as ''flagrant
abuse'' of Comesa regulations. Chaziya said he could
not divulge detailed charges against Mutharika, a Malawian
national.

''They (the charges) were very serious. It's all sorts
of things hinging on mismanagement of the organisation
and misuse of Comesa,'' he said. Chaziya said the
investigation panel, comprising Zambia, Kenya, Uganda,
Zaire, and Zimbabwe, also felt Mutharika lacked the
vision to take Comesa into the next century. Mutharika
was suspended three months ago pending investigations.
He has denied charges of mismanaging and abusing the
20-member grouping.

A Comesa summit held in Zambia on April 10 adopted recommendations
of the Council of Ministers to fire Mutharika. It is
largely believed that Mutharika came under scrutiny
for his alleged involvement in politics in Malawi.

Chaziya said, however, the charge of political meddling
in the affairs of a member country did not appear in
the report adopted by the Comesa Heads of State. ''The
Malawi government position was that Malawi is a democratic
country where every citizen is free to aspire to any
position in the land,'' he said.

9. YOUNG BOY FIRST CASUALTY OF HOSPITAL STRIKE

A plea by a motorist who had brought a boy seriously
injured in a car accident to Queen Elizabeth Hospital,
was allegedly ignored by striking staff on April 15.

The motorist whose car had hit the child went running
to where CSTU leaders were addressing hospital staff
on the on-going strike at the hospital, and pleaded
with them to help the child. ''Please help me ...
the child is dying,'' he is reported to have said.
Afterwards, he said that he had received the shock
of his life when he was heckled by the hospital staff
and told to go to another hospital some six kilometres
away.

The boy was pronounced dead on arrival at the second
hospital.

10. RECEPTION FOR MULUZI BRINGS DEATH TO TWO IN TRAFFIC
ACCIDENT

On April 12, two UDF supporters, returning home from
welcoming President Muluzi back to Malawi from his
trip to Zambia and Angola, were killed instantly when
the truck in which they were travelling collided with
another vehicle in Blantyre.

Several other passengers in the vehicle were injured,
three of them seriously. The three were admitted to
the Central Hospital in Blantyre with arm, leg and
rib fractures and concussion.